


burning bright

by snackhobi



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Creampie, Cunnilingus, Drift Compatibility, F/M, Jaeger Pilots, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, also some mention of injuries, listen I am terrible at tagging things I'm so sorry, there's some kaiju/jaeger combat but nothing graphic, this is a pacific rim au in case that wasn't obvious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:35:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27012874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snackhobi/pseuds/snackhobi
Summary: there are no secrets in the drift. if jungkook were to see the mess inside your head and heart, laid utterly bare, he’d turn away from you.
Relationships: Jeon Jungkook/Original Female Character(s), Jeon Jungkook/Reader
Comments: 14
Kudos: 65





	burning bright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [makotako](https://archiveofourown.org/users/makotako/gifts).



> this is a birthday gift for the incredibly talented [erin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/makotako/)! happy birthday wifey ily

Jeon Jungkook really is the perfect posterboy for a Jaeger pilot.

Broad across the shoulders and trim at the waist, all sharp punches and hard muscle, resilient and tough, with a face that’s the perfect balance of angles and softness; the cut of his jaw easing up and into his pretty mouth, the line of his brows subdued by his warm eyes—he’s a Goddamn vision, raw masculinity overlaid on rich veins of boyishness, glittering stratum that sparkle and shine even under the harsh lights of the Shatterdome. 

He pouts when he thinks and his hair hangs a little in his big, big eyes and he has dimples that appear when he grins, teeth poking out onto his pretty pink lips, like someone took a rabbit and turned it into a man and packed on pounds of muscle alongside. Undeniably powerful and strong, but youthful and sweet, too.

Alongside Kim Taehyung—arresting and beautiful and somehow affable and approachable, all at the same time—they’re exactly what South Korea needs right now, propelling the country’s new look for their renewed assault against the kaiju. They’re the lucky new Rangers who’ve claimed ownership of the only Mark-5 that their homeland has produced, Bulletproof Striker, a fucking gorgeous Jaeger bristling with the latest and greatest technology that the world has produced.

But that doesn’t mean they’re the best that South Korea has to offer.

Cypher Zero is smaller, lighter, older, but she’s _fierce_. Just like her pilots. You and Yoongi might not be the burning beacons of hope that Jungkook and Taehyung are, polished and buffed to a squeaky shine, but you don’t need to be. You’re vicious and victorious and show no signs of stopping. The kaiju kills painted on your Mark-4’s shoulder are evidence enough of that, notches for each monster taken down, spray painted in one tiny corner of the huge swathe of burnished metal plating, the red edges of her midnight skin.

Bulletproof Striker is almost untouched, deployed just once since her recent launch, flawless exterior so at odds with Cypher Zero’s battered facade. Cypher’s beautiful, of course, but bears the history of your skirmishes, inside and out: scuffed paintwork, dented metal, rust dripping down from the ladder rungs dotted across her, melting into the obsidian of her hull. 

Jungkook and Taehyung move in a way that’s practiced, disciplined motions of combat that their Jaeger echoes in turn. Her mechanical movements reflect those of the men inside her head, skilled and superb. Stunning. But you and Yoongi? You fight _dirty_ , violent and rough; messy bar room brawls; shattered glass and clawing hands in beer soaked backrooms, tinged sulphur yellow under dirty lightbulbs; two kids who fought against a world that was against _them_. 

(Two damaged people coming together in the Drift to make something even stronger than the sum of your parts.)

(Two damaged people who survived the rough hands of the Jaeger Academy, trying to take them, push them, shape them, break them.)

(Life isn’t kind. You’d learned that young, surrounded in the splintered remnants of your childhood home, the facade of family and happiness already gone, long long long ago, leaving you aching and lonely and cold. The prospect of fighting thousands of tons of alien hatred, lifting out of the depths of the uncaring, dark sea? At least you can see the kaiju coming. Broken households and loneliness? A little harder to lay your hands on.)

(But out of everything you lost, you’d gained one thing—Min Yoongi, another quiet, damaged thing, but with the biggest depths of warmth and love underneath that hard surface; your best friend, your brother-in-arms, growing alongside you, with you. Damaged kids turned bitter teenagers turned razor-edged adults, outcasts in solitude, but together. Not alone.)

(The deeper the bond, the better you fight. Falling into the Drift with Yoongi had been easy, years of tangled connection bleeding into the images that flashed across your brain. The same memories from different angles, overlaid with different emotions, undercurrents eddying under the surface that caught both of you and swept you up in its flow; the same mind, bridged by hundreds of tons of metal and technology and firepower underneath you, linked together in the silence of the Drift.)

There’s reverence, in the way these two new pilots look at you both, reverence and awe and respect alike: older Rangers, more experienced, history written across the worn edges of your Drivesuits, the paint flaking away from your battle armour, scuffs and scrapes on the once unblemished veneer; knowledge etched into the feline slant of Yoongi’s eyes, the turn of your shoulders and hips. 

You know Jungkook’s track record. You know of the endless months of assessment and sparring and psych evals and Drift tests and simulation drops that every successful Ranger has to go through, and Jungkook had trumped them all, stood atop them like a conqueror surveying his hard-won lands—gifted, talented, some even said God-touched. And yet for all this indomitable talent and skill, there’s still humility at his core, a willingness to defer with respect.

That deference is obvious whenever he sees you. Jungkook’s dark eyes will touch your own, for a moment, dark and deep and bright—and then his gaze will skitter away, cockiness and bravado dissolving into something submissive, yielding. (Shy.) You’ve watched him orbit you, the younger ranger caught in your gravity, always nearby—the Shatterdome is only so big, for its magnitude and sprawling corridors—but never broaching that final gap, that little step, into Cypher Zero’s space, Yoongi’s space, _your_ space. Keeping himself at arm’s length.

South Korea’s golden boy, less afraid of the Kaiju than he is of his _sunbaenim_.

Jungkook and Taehyung are both beautiful. But you and Yoongi are less so, unapproachable in ways that the younger pilots aren’t, private and prickly, like grasping a patch of stinging nettles with bare hands, stinging and burning.

As if Jungkook isn’t terrifying and gorgeous in his own ways. As if he doesn’t shine brighter than the sun himself. Taehyung moves through the world with a thoughtless, charismatic ease that Jungkook doesn’t share—but he’s still magnetic, bold and brilliant, monstrously skilled at everything he puts his mind to, training again and again and again to get it right, get it right, get it right. 

To get it _perfect_. 

But there’s no level of perfectionism that can surmount the twisted, unpredictable nature of the kaiju belched forth from the breach. No matter how good you are, how strong or fast, how smart or seasoned, sometimes you still get caught in that hurricane, even in a Jaeger.

It doesn’t matter how many engines are packed into each muscle strand. It doesn’t matter how fast the pistons and levers and gears shift and move. It doesn’t matter that the pilots in her cockpit are impeccable and incredible. Under the cloak of deepest night and pouring rain, blanketed in darkness and water from the heavens above and the sea below, movement is impossible to track—and when Steelbrute rises from the waves, no one sees the kaiju coming.

Bulletproof Striker takes the hit. Jungkook and Taehyung fight back but they’re blindsided and overwhelmed, and their Jaeger falls to her knees in the churn of the Pacific Ocean, salt water crashing over her in choppy waves as Steelbrute’s merciless maw gapes wide open.

Cypher Zero is 250ft tall and weighs 1410 tons. You and Yoongi are tiny specks of organic matter in a fearsome behemoth of titanium and tungsten and graphene and circuitry, commanders of a weapon that’s the same size as a skyscraper—and yet you wouldn’t think that for how fast you move. Zero hesitation. No verbal communication. Cypher’s legs cut through endless waves and gain momentum with each crashing step that slams into the seafloor before you leap forward in a flurry of motion and Drift powered fury. 

Your motions in the Conn-Pod are ragged and incensed, your arms and legs moving in sync with Yoongi, with Cypher Zero, a snarl ripping out of your co-pilot’s usually quiet mouth as the kaiju lurches underneath you. The world narrows down to this: throwing yourself into the fray, jagged knuckles edged with plasma pummelled into Steelbrute’s skin in a scuffle that’s vicious, _aggressive_ , until Bulletproof Striker regains her footing.

The sun is rising, grey and cold on the horizon when Steelbrute finally sinks into the sea, toxic blood flooding the water with neon blue. When you step out of the cockpit, Yoongi’s fringe is matted with sweat, and you can feel all the places the circuitry suit sticks to your skin—piloting a Jaeger is mentally and physically exhausting, every muscle and organ and bone working overtime for endless hours as you fight tooth and nail. Without the helmets in the way, there’s nothing stopping you bumping your foreheads together, heedless of the sweat slicked there; Yoongi’s hand rests at the back of your head, a familiar cradle.

“All good,” you say. Yoongi lets out a quiet bark of a laugh, rough and exhausted.

“I want a nap,” he says, like he always does, even if you’re a long way away from that, still fully suited and due to speak to the Marshalls. There are so, so many things separating you from the bliss of sleep.

One thing that’s not part of the normal routine, though, is the other pilots catching you, demanding your recognition, respectful (Taehyung) but insistent (Jungkook). You know that Yoongi doesn’t like attention or hero-worship, but there’s nothing except gratitude, here, bent heads and words of thanks. You’d saved their lives, after all. Saved their Jaeger from being torn apart, pain screaming through their own bodies of flesh and bone, connected to their metal monster. Of course they’re grateful.

You dismiss it with a hard cut of your hand.

“It’s nothing,” you say. 

You’re speaking the words you know are in Yoongi’s head—years of friendship and shared Drifts leaving his thought processes wide open to you—although you know you’re sharper than he is, harsher than he is, even, for all that he looks like the cold one from the outside. Long lashes and silken hair don’t translate to something soft and feminine and pretty, and you’re all ragged edges and rough parts, bleeding into the delivery of your words. Yoongi rounds the words in his mouth and places them into the world with a rumble of quiet strength that belies his past, but you? Your tongue is cutting and terse and drips with distrust, even when you don’t mean it to, staring at these two boys, Jungkook’s eyes so brown and large when he stares back at you.

The truth is that you care about humanity, of course. You care about humanity and you care about the millions of people in the cities that line the coasts and further inland, and you care about your fellow pilots, skilled but soft-hearted as they are. You’re stronger. You have to be. That’s what Yoongi is, that’s what you are: fighters. You fight dirty because you fight to win, not to protect yourselves. You’ll fight and you’ll die for this, for _them_ , even if there’s no friendship there. Not yet. You’re still too distant, for all that you’d thrown yourself in the line of fire to rip the kaiju from the younger Rangers. 

And when Jungkook levels a look at you, there’s a flicker of something. A spark. All the glittering of his warm eyes comes together like the cascading sparks of molten fire that fall when metal is cut through— his eyes score through you, down down down, right to your core, underneath all the armour you’ve laid about yourself throughout your life. Your heart stutters. You’ve been watching Jeon Jungkook, and he’s all cocky Ranger bravado, or innocent brown eyes and shy, curving smiles, and yet. 

And yet. You know he sees this soft part of you, somehow. Past the thorns and sharp leaves, past the hard husk, into the rich, bursting sweetness inside, oozing red gems of pomegranate that yield so easily to the fingers and mouth.

(He’s temerarious and modest and wickedly perceptive too, it seems.)

“That was our kill,” he says suddenly. Taehyung—the voice piece of the two, the one who’s been smiling and speaking, easy and slow—goes still at his side.

“What?” Yoongi’s eyes pierce through him, but Jungkook keeps his focus on you.

“Steelbrute. Our kill. It was a hit from our rockets that took him out,” Jungkook says, eyes still glinting with that sparkling shine. Slicing through you with an explosion of light. “Not your blades.”

Silence steals over you, for a breath. It’s never truly silent in the Shatterdome, an iron fortress that never sleeps, but for a second, there’s quiet. It wraps around you. Tight. Almost deafening.

But then you break that silence.

You _laugh_. 

You laugh at the cheeky grin that pulls at Jungkook’s lips, the boyish lift to his face. You laugh at his shamelessness, the sudden 180 from his earlier fear. You laugh at the way he’s diluted this astonishing, formidable thing—humanity coming together to destroy alien predators that threaten the planet—into a competition.

“You’re a menace, Jeon Jungkook,” you say.

Stinging nettles you might be, but if you’re grabbed hard and fast by confident hands, you don’t wound. Jeon Jungkook defers to respect, avoids confrontation, bows his head and quiets his mouth, but he knows, now, that he can do this. That he can push you like this, and you’ll let him, sway against it, let yourself be pushed.

Yoongi slides you a glance out the corner of his eyes, a light touch, a tacit agreement to an unspoken question.

“You can have it. Steelbrute’s yours.” There’s the smallest curl to your lips as you speak for you both. There’s something weirdly easy and familiar to this, to this interaction, even if you’ve barely exchanged words before now, giving this triumph to the other pilots hand over fist.

(Giving it to Jungkook on a platter.)

You can see the flare of triumph in Jungkook’s eyes. You know it’s not for the notch of their first kill, one they can add to their Jaeger. It’s for something far harder to achieve, something far more ephemeral: digging down and past your cool veneer and lifting out a smile, spreading it across your lips like warm butter, liquid gold.

\--

And he keeps making you smile. 

\--

Jeon Jungkook, you find, is a force of nature, relentless, an ocean. Sometimes he’s soft, loving waves of glittering blue that crash on pearly white beaches, playful and bright. Sometimes, he’s intense, the crashing waves of a storm tossed sea, powerful and unstoppable. Always, he’s striking, even when he’s not trying—even more so because of it, moving without thought or uncertainty, a silence settling over your thoughts whenever you see him like this. See him in this raw state, so unafraid where before he’d curbed his tongue and bent his head in front of you. Now, he’s just himself, without filter.

Taehyung is there too, of course. Both pilots join your small, fiercely private circle, not just a path from you to Yoongi any more. They become intertwining lines, a pattern that’s drawn between the four of you, pilots, friends. And you learn, that for all that you’d thought that Taehyung was the dominant one outside of their Jaeger, social and extroverted and unabashed, Jungkook isn’t quiet. Not when he’s comfortable.

(Not, now, when he’s with you.)

He’s a myriad of things, endlessly deep, so different from you, from Yoongi, but—the truth of it settles inside you, your joints, the marrow of your bones, the blood that pulses forth from your heart each time it beats in your chest, liquid life running through you. 

Drift compatibility.

Not that it matters. You already have a partner. You’re never going to open yourself up to anyone that isn’t Yoongi, who’s seen every part of you already. There’d been no fear about letting Yoongi see inside your brain, your heart, the raw, bleeding parts of you—because he’d already known them. Just like you’d known his. Yoongi stands to your right, inside the Conn-Pod and out, a driving force, even in his silence. 

But Jungkook is softer, sweeter, for all his raw power and skill, respect engraved into his every motion, even when he’s teasing and making you laugh. Even when he ignores the social guidelines that he should follow, _does_ follow for others, everyone except you. 

And you don’t mind. You don’t bite out insults at him when he slides into the quiet hollow you’ve scraped out, a small space with just enough room for the people you keep in your heart. You’re still barbed and spiked, warding away unwanted attention, but for Jungkook, the claws retract. 

You’re still you, of course. Jungkook calls you _mean_ , says that you bully him, even as he’s flopped across your bunk, eating your rations, shovelling coveted popcorn into his mouth. He might pout and sigh and cry oppression, but you’re soft on him and he knows it. That quiet hollow in your heart is a little larger, now, a little louder. Jungkook is brazen in his claim of this space, spreading each of his limbs wide as he fits himself into every part of it. He doesn’t know every piece of your past, and you don’t plan to let him see all the messy parts bundled in your chest, but. But he’s still there.

And you let him stay. You make a home for him inside you and let him take the key. He might tilt his head and goad you, might pretend there’s a genuine challenge in the set of his jaw, but you know it’s all tempered with admiration, veneration. Friendship.

(And where he clearly respects you, you admire him in turn. You’re reminded of your differences every second he moves and breathes and just _exists_ in front of you, but you don’t have to be similar to someone to realise just how incredible they are.)

(But though you’re different, there are similarities. You’re not a mirrored image, a reflection, like you are with Yoongi. Instead, you’re a line drawn between two separate places, an isohel, sun lighting up your world for the same sweep of the clock even for how far apart you are. Sharing that same, tenuous thing, for all your contrasting parts.)

(This thing that’s growing, held in your hands. This soft, gentle thing, shimmering, frail, unfurling slowly but undeniably. Tinged with happiness, disbelief. Disbelief that you’ve found this, that you can see Jungkook across the echoing cavern of the Shatterdome’s main hall, so far in the distance, barely visible at the foot of his Jaeger—and something will settle in your chest. Featherlight, iridescent. Something comforting.)

When you fight the kaiju, now, it’s with a deeper reserve of desperation. Taehyung and Jungkook aren’t just fellow pilots, _dongsaeng_ that you’re obliged to look after: they’re your friends, something more than that too, part of the rare handful of people in the world who _understand_ , this overwhelming pressure to fight and win and protect the things you love. The people you love. They understand what it’s like to step into someone else’s head, to be connected to that person on a level that’s unfathomable, anchored in a depth of love that’s endless. You’re their aegis, now, their shield.

(Jungkook’s shield.)

Maybe that’s what’s to blame. Maybe that’s why you’re so sloppy, this time. Maybe that’s why you throw yourselves in the way of the blow that was meant for Bulletproof Striker. Maybe that’s why Ojousan shreds Cypher Zero’s chest apart, her head, why Yoongi is almost ripped from you, his fear and pain screaming through your neural connection. You feel everything he feels and more beside, your heart hammering in your throat as you scream, Jaeger’s arm swinging up and around in tandem with your own motions as you try to rip the kaiju away, anything to protect Yoongi, so scared of losing him, always always always, scared of being left alone.

But you’re not alone. 

Bulletproof Striker lifts up like an avenging angel. Her horns roar a challenge, an echoing battle cry as the younger pilots move in. Heavier and stronger, keeping her balance even in the turbulence of a fight, she takes the hits, gives back her own, sends the kaiju down into the crashing waves, waits for it to rise. But the monster is crafty and quick and even as you’re lifting your left arm—Yoongi’s hurt, so hurt, you know this, feel this, but he moves with you to ready the plasma cannon buried in the mechanics of your Jaeger’s hand, even if he’s keening with pain—you watch as the other pilots, too, fall victim to the clawed tail of the kaiju, screeching through layers of alloys and across their Conn-Pod.

Terror strikes through every part of you and morphs into hate. You hate the kaiju, hate your own weakness, hate the pain that’s been saved from being written into your own body while Yoongi screams and sobs even though he still fights. Your motions are anguished and desperate as you battle to overcome this beast that’s almost taken away everything that matters to you—and Cypher Zero, _Yoongi_ , as damaged and hurt as they are, come through. (Like they always do, for you, always.)

And somehow, despite everything, for all the self-hatred and pain and fear, you pull through. You pull through. Damaged and hurt but _alive_.

Barely.

Barely alive. 

(One hand gives, the other takes away.)

It takes hours for them to pick Yoongi’s Drivesuit from his body, crumpled around him from Ojousan’s claws, cutting into the soft flesh of his body, body ruined further by the fighting he’d been forced into despite his injuries; so many of Taehyung’s bones are shattered, and when you finally see him awake and with his eyes open, there are burst blood vessels that cast red across the usually warm expression, his friendly eyes.

You should be grateful that they’re alive. You should be on your hands and knees, weeping, benedictions dripping from your graceless mouth as you thank whatever merciless God above decided to turn their gaze on you and grant you this leniency. So many pilots have died and will continue to die, you know this, but somehow your partners are still alive.

And you are grateful. You _are_. But there’s bitterness on your tongue, twisted across your palate, sour and acrid and filling you with its taste. You’d been foolish and reckless and you’d almost lost the things you cared about most, even if you’d destroyed the kaiju, torn it apart and left its fluorescent indigo blood to corrode the ocean. 

That’s what’s important, isn’t it. Saving humanity. One person, two people, four people—you’re the tiniest cogs in a whirring engine of billions. Unimportant. Just a spinning part that keeps the machine going.

When you’re not with Yoongi or Taehyung, an unmoving presence from their hospital beds, a hovering gargoyle carved from stone, you’re with Jungkook. Always, always, always. Somehow you’d both escaped without the injuries inflicted on your partners—you’d manage to break your little finger, and Jungkook had a black eye and a twisted ankle, and the both of you had mottles of bruises cast across your skin, pulled muscles, an ache carved into your bones, but that was it. That was it. It was almost laughable, how unscathed you are.

You hate it.

(It should have been you.)

Your legs—unbroken, unharmed—hang over steel scaffolding, motionless as you watch the tiny specks of people scuttling across the catwalks that criss-cross Cypher Zero’s body. You can see under her skin, damage peeling back all the layers of metal that should be holding her together. Endless showers of sparks fall and scatter as she’s stitched back together. Your beautiful girl is so damaged, so disfigured.

(You’d caught Yoongi as he’d fallen from the harness, listened to the horrible noises that had torn out of his lips as he’d dripped blood and pain over your shaking hands.)

The bland food you’d scraped off your dinner tray settles fitfully in your stomach, still one second, nausea bubbling up your throat the next. 

It’s one of the rare times you’ve been alone, since… since everything. You’ve been taking comfort in Jungkook’s presence, unwavering and understated, needing someone there when staring at Yoongi’s battered face proved too much. Even with his own upheaval Jungkook’s been there, at your side, always close. Eyes locked on you and taking everything in, the tired set to your face, the expression that tugs down your lips, and still, he stays.

But he’d disappeared after you’d eaten, a peculiar look on his face—you know him well enough now to recognise that look, that it means he’s got something in his head, some plan he means to unfold. It’s the first time you’ve seen it since Taehyung had been pulled out of the Conn-Pod. It’s some semblance of normality, an expression of something other than pale-faced dread and bone-shivering guilt. 

(You feel it too, that survivor’s guilt. Taehyung and Yoongi will recover but it’ll take time and so much suffering and you wish you could take that from them, heft that burden onto your own shoulders.)

(You know Jungkook feels the same.)

(You see it written in the tense lines of his body. Hear it unspoken in the words he shares with you. The bruises on his skin melt from red to purple to blue to yellow, but even if his body heals, his brain and heart bear the scars of helplessness.)

Jungkook reappears, finds you at the heavy steel door that leads into your room, rusted and worn but silent as it swings open in front of you. His eyes are wide and he’s breathless, like he’s been running, chest heaving as he sucks in air through his parted lips, a flash of teeth and tongue as he smiles.

Despite everything, you smile back. Helpless for that smile, always, happier now for the sight of it, for how little you’ve seen it. You want to see that smile every day. You don’t want him to worry for anything. You want him to feel the same way you do, when you see him: that quiet, maybe selfish thought that _things are okay._

Maybe he does. (His eyes are so warm.) He presses something into your hands, something soft and round like a well-practised secret, and then he’s gone. You can tell by the gait of his stride that he’s going back to Taehyung, giving you a moment of lonely reprieve to wash the grime and dirt off your useless body before you follow in his footsteps, stationed at Yoongi’s side.

The door swings shut behind you.

You lift your hand.

It’s an orange.

It’s a small, overripe thing, hard nub of the stem falling away from the skin with only the lightest brush of your fingers. You stare at the fruit, its brightness cutting through the muted sepia tones of your surroundings, a point of colour in an otherwise dull room.

You haven’t seen an orange in months. Rationing is tough on everyone, even Jaeger pilots. You’d mentioned in passing, so long ago, an old habit of yours. Before something else floated above it, more important and interesting, you’d made a fleeting statement that had flitted across the surface of the conversation: you liked eating oranges in the shower. Liked that nice, cool citrus sweetness in your mouth while the rest of your body was caught in the fall of warm water.

It’s such a small, tiny thing. Just the briefest lament—there are more important things than the fact you can’t have shower oranges any more, after all—and you’d forgotten you’d even mentioned it.

But Jungkook hadn’t.

It’s almost syrupy sweet, this orange. You savour each slice, pressing them between your teeth, feeling the rush of juice burst forth through the pith and skin, and it’s so good you could cry. 

You _do_ cry.

Your mouth is full of orange and your eyes are full of tears and your head is full of—of— _something_ , something so all encompassing that it overwhelms you, water cascading down the aching planes of your body as you crumple inwards. Jungkook had protected you with the overwhelming power of Bulletproof Striker, and he’s protecting you now, soft and considerate and kind, vulnerable and human. Stripped of tons of metal and technology, Jungkook wears his beating heart on his sleeve and is none the weaker for it. 

This seemingly small thing means so much, so so so much. You understand him, and he understands you too, knows that this gesture is indicative of support and care and nurturing, a tiny fragment of peace he can offer you in the tumult of everything out of your control. 

A tiny fragment of peace that’s part of a greater whole, all the things that Jungkook gives to you.

\--

When the Marshalls gather you and tell you the plan going forwards, you’re unsurprised. 

It makes sense, of course. Four pilots down to two still leaves a pair, and Bulletproof Striker is nearly functional even if Cypher Zero will stay out of commission while she’s rebuilt. Simple maths. One Jaeger, two pilots. You and Jungkook.

You’re scared.

You know you’re Drift compatible. Every fight in the Kwoon Combat Room is evidence enough of that. A _dialogue_ , each challenge is meant to be a dialogue to show physical compatibility, and it is: there’s perfect sync in how you each move to strike, even if your motions are so different, muscles burning and breaths coming faster each time you attack, parry, strike, block. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s a conversation, one that you and Jungkook fall into without thought.

And he would be the perfect partner. That much isn’t in doubt. Loyal and open and strong, honourable and brave and kind—and you _know_ him, have grown to learn so much about this golden boy, this bright, brilliant boy. He’s fucking indomitable and anyone would be lucky to find themselves in the same Jaeger as Jeon Jungkook.

But there are no secrets in the Drift. 

To let someone in, you have to trust them. And you do, you do trust Jungkook, probably far more than makes sense, some unspoken thing between you burning like a wildfire. But while you trust him, confident in his strength and his heart, you trust yourself less.

You’ll be flayed open, naked and defenceless. He’ll see right to the core of you, every dirty corner of your crumpled soul, every shameful part of your foundations, uneven brickwork layered into your shaky temperament; strong one second, weak the next. He’ll see that you’re hard inside, too, biting and acidic right down to your shrivelled heart. This nascent thing that you’ve been building with Jungkook, been keeping safe in the cradle of your careful hands, will sputter out and die.

“Baby.”

Yoongi’s voice is comforting, a familiar rumble that rolls through your ears as you rest your head in his lap.

“And I mean that you’re literally being a baby,” he continues, and you curl your lip back from your teeth in a small snarl, menacing.

Yoongi just continues to thread his hands through your hair.

You’ve Drifted with Yoongi often and long enough to know how every thread of thought unspools in that skull of his. You know he has every confidence in the unshakeable pillar of your soul. He’s a brother to you, a connection that thrums deep in your veins even without the intimacy of the Drift, and the love you hold for him is undying and true.

But whatever you have with Jungkook is so timorous in the face of that.

“It’s different.” Yoongi looks down at the twist of your face. You know his thoughts and he knows yours too, your face and heart an open book to him. “But different isn’t bad.”

You keep your mouth shut, keep the words swallowed down in your throat, shoved down to the pit of your stomach. Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

“Baby,” he says again, softer, lower. This time, you know it’s an endearment. 

At the end of the day, no matter what fear grips cold and endless at your insides, you’ll do it. You’ll Drift with Jungkook. You’ll throw everything you have into the pyre, watch it burn and turn to ash, if it means you can keep everyone safe. To save Yoongi, Taehyung, Jungkook—you’ll open yourself up to the mortifying ordeal of opening up, laying yourself bare. You have to.

It’s chaotic, anyway. The day that your practice Drift is scheduled is the day the next kaiju rises out of the breach, that dreaded rift between our world and theirs, because why would you be allowed to breathe, even for a second?

It’s a scramble into the cockpit. There’s no time for trial runs or test Drifts. You fly or you fall. Everyone’s in a state of orderly upheaval as you’re suited up and left to stride forwards into a Conn-Pod that isn’t yours, in a Jaeger that isn’t yours.

(Left to stride forwards to stand next to someone who isn’t yours.)

Your Drivesuit is grey. Jungkook’s is white. There’s a subtle hologramatic sheen laid across the planes of his armour, leaving him a multicoloured vision that shines out under the flicker of the cockpit’s endless tiny buttons and lights. Your own suit is a matte, gunmetal with accents of burning scarlet, far more battered and worn. Dark and wild in the face of Jungkook’s radiance. He’s the perfect answer to the kaiju invasion. You, though, feel like an interloper in a space that wasn’t designed for you, this circle room that’s been home to Jungkook and his true, real partner. 

But he’s looking at you like there’s no one else he’d rather have by his side. 

He doesn’t care that everything about this moment just cements how he’s too good for you in every conceivable way, elevated above you. Doesn’t care that you’re just a temporary stop gap. There’s trepidation, of course, skittering nerves that dance across his face for this first Drift, surrounded by all the commotion that’s swallowing the world up outside the cockpit. But there’s also that fire in his eyes, one you’ve learned to expect: Jungkook is a wildfire and will surmount any obstacle in a blaze of white-hot light.

And he wants you along for the ride.

(Burns bright for it.)

“You ready?” He asks, and the tiny tremor in his words takes you off guard even as it soothes a balm over the rash of apprehension that prickles across your skin.

(Because he’s nervous, too.)

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” you answer, truly.

His eyes crinkle into a smile, crescents of happiness as his lip peels back from his teeth. It should be jarring, seeing his sweet bunny smile in the pit of a Jaeger, so at odds with the military polycarbonate that girds his body with protection, the masculine edges of his face—but it’s not. The world is just a backdrop to Jeon Jungkook, dropping away as you fall into his eyes, twinkling stars of brightness and warmth that hold you safe, even now.

Peace and contentment steals over you. You’re almost shocked by it, the way your own face softens into a smile, the rising beat of your heart. Every ragged messy edge in you is smoothed over by Jungkook’s presence and you _glow_ for him.

When the Conn-Pod drops, there’s the familiar weightlessness, the sway of your body in the harness as you fall. Anticipation roils through you as Bulletproof Striker’s head locks into place, whirring mechanisms securing you to nearly 2000 tons of metal, so much heavier than your own Jaeger. You’ve taken Jungkook’s usual place and he’s taken Taehyung’s, the right hemisphere, the dominant pilot, familiar with this machine in a way you’re not.

Not yet, at least.

“We’ve got this.”

Jungkook’s voice cuts through the noise, the AI talking at you, a narration of events you’ve long grown used to. You turn your head to look at him. He’s already looking at you, intent and sincere. Like always.

“Yeah,” you say. “Yeah, we have.”

There’s no point being afraid. In a few seconds, Jungkook will be in your head, washing over every part of you—and you’ll be in his, pressing your ethereal touch into every facet that comes together to make Jeon Jungkook who he is.

Seconds pass. There’s a little hitch in his breath, a stiffness to his limbs, and he shuts his eyes. You breathe in deep, deep, deep, sucking in a harsh breath into your greedy lungs—

—the timer hits zero—

—and then the Drift slams into you all at once, all encompassing and consuming, threading your minds together.

(Drifting with Yoongi is easy, the familiarity of coming home after so much time away.)

(But this?)

(This is throwing yourself into a cold lake on a hot summer’s day, bracing and refreshing and breath-stealing all at once, shocking life into every one of your limbs, so sharp and fast you’re scared you might drown before you breach the surface, water holding onto you and not letting you go. This is driving reckless and fast down empty roads, watching the world pass you in a blur, laughing in delight at the pleasure of it all. This is scaling a cliffside with nothing but your own hands and determination, digging your fingers into the unyielding rock, pulling yourself up-up-up, never letting yourself fall.)

(This is having Jungkook beside you. This is having Jungkook diving into the lake with all the grace of an Olympian before he rises to the surface, tosses his hair carelessly out of his face, and spits a mouthful of water at you with laughter in his eyes. This is having Jungkook behind the driver’s wheel, shifting gears without thought, looking away from the road to watch the way your hair dances in the wind. This is having Jungkook climbing beside you, waiting for you at the top, holding a hand out to pull you up and over so you can sprawl out beside him, exhausted and exuberant at the top of this mountain, basking in the sun with Jungkook just a hair’s breadth away from you.)

(He takes one look at you. He takes one look at all the dark of your memories, the cascading mess of your insides, the hidden things that are open to him in the Drift, cut open and peeled back for his gaze—and he doesn’t look away.)

(He sees everything, past skin and muscle and bone and nerves, even deeper, right into your heart—)

(—all the torrents that eddy the deep waters of your soul—)

(—and he doesn’t look away.)

(He doesn’t look away.)

(Can’t look away.)

(Doesn’t want to.)

(Never wants to.)

(Jeon Jungkook takes one look at you, your whole being, and he _knows_ you.)

(And he doesn’t want you any less.)

It’s just a second, a flicker, a breath, this first connection in this Drift, falling into each other. But it’s also a lifetime, two lifetimes, four lifetimes; your memories, Jungkook’s memories, Yoongi’s memories in yours, Taehyung’s memories in Jungkook’s. Layers and layers and years and years piled over one another, a tumbling sprawl—but it’s easy. It’s easy, so easy, Jungkook seeing you, you seeing _him_ , everything he is, everything you are, everything you are to each other, with each other, for each other. The important things. The things you need to know to navigate this together, in sync even before now, reading each other to a level neither had even realised.

And when you’ve killed the kaiju. When you’ve walked Bulletproof Striker back to shore, brought her back to the Shatterdome, back home, it doesn’t end. You lift out of the Drift, step out of your Drivesuits, as different as they are (as different as _you_ are), and it _doesn’t end_. 

Jungkook’s eyes linger, as heavy as a physical touch, and even as congratulations for a successful drop are bandied about you, he doesn’t leave your side. He keeps his hand against yours—not intertwined, but brushing, the curl of his fingers against your own. Touching. You’re not the protector here. He’s protecting _you_ , in a way that doesn’t leave you feeling inferior or weak. You feel soft and warm and small and safe, pulled inexorably towards him, supported, buoyed up, and you don’t feel selfish for it.

Because he _wants_ this.

He wants to be your comfort and your support.

He doesn’t want it to end.

(You don’t want it to end.)

And when you finally break away from those crowds, released from the shackles of responsibility and expectation—when you’re finally left alone, the two of you with each other, there’s no hesitation when you come together.

He lays you out beneath him and has you sobbing, back arching into the pleasure he draws out of your body, playing you like a maestro. Because he knows you, after all. He knows exactly how to trail his lips across your skin, your neck and stomach and thighs, painting marks across your body like it’s his personal canvas. He knows exactly how to have you twisting underneath him, how to pull those pretty sounds from your lips, fucking you with his fingers and his tongue until you’re a shaking mess. He kisses you sweet, merciless, letting you claw at his skin as you beg for more, more more more, wanting it, needing it, wanting him, needing him.

And you know he’ll give it to you. He’ll give himself to you, give you everything you ask for. You know how he wants to see you fall apart and you know how to move your body to have him gritting his teeth and staring in awe. You know how desperate he is to worship you, to show you his adoration and reverence, and you open up for him, unfurl like a flower, dripping nectar. When he finally presses into you, hot and long and thick, it’s so good you could cry. You draw him in-in-in, into your body and arms and heart, pressing your lips to the sweat at his brow, the taste of skin and salt and _Jungkook_ bursting across your tongue.

There’s no Drift here, no curl of memories and unspoken thoughts between you. It’s physical and human, the crash of your bodies against each other, skin on skin, the thrust of his cock pressing into the dripping folds of your cunt. It’s the other half of that connection, the final piece, this thing you have with Jungkook, this perfect balance you have with him. It sears itself across your body and into your soul: it’s pleasure and passion and devotion carved into each touch of your lips and fingers, each roll of your hips, each time Jungkook makes you cum, gasping for him.

When he’s finally come apart inside you, spilling into your willing heat as you shake beneath him, arms and legs wrapped around his body as you pull him as close as you can, unwilling to let go—it still doesn’t end. You’re so wrapped up in Jungkook, in his arms, his heart, and you know he won’t let you go, either. He presses his lips against yours, chases those kisses, quiet and chaste to open-mouthed and dirty as the mood takes you, and then Jungkook rolls over you again, a spark in his eyes as he decides he’s still hungry for you.

You know, now, that all that time ago, when you carved that space for him into your chest, he’d done the same for you. He’d laid his heart at your feet and waited there, kneeling, for you to accept it, patient and willing. Staring at you with all the deep love you never thought you deserved, never thought you’d receive. But here he is. Here he is, love burning in his dark brown eyes. Eyes that have seen all the damaged, aching parts of you and love you anyway.

“I’m yours.”

Jungkook shines so bright at your words, a supernova of joy. His smile is so wide and his gaze is so soft, for you, for you, for you.

“Everything I am is for you,” he murmurs, letting the words curl into the air, settle across your skin, sink deep inside your chest. Your eyes flutter shut as you feel this touch of him inside you, wrapped around your heart.

And when you lift your hands, he comes so easily. He presses his cheek into the curve of your fingers, lets you hold him, lets you cup those lovely cheeks in your palms.

“I love you,” he says.

Right now, in this instant, there’s nothing but him. No kaiju, no Jaegers, no crumbling world, nothing. There’s only him, and you, together.

“I love you too,” you reply—and when you smile, gentle and tender, Jungkook falls in love all over again.

Burns bright for you.

**Author's Note:**

> you can also find this fic [on my tumblr!](https://snackhobi.tumblr.com/post/631929853435854848/pairing-jungkook-x-reader-word-count-74k)


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